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Story
Pandora's Box – Story Pandora's Box takes place in an abandoned hospital, following the main character, a woman called Pandora, as she tries to escape her hallucinations, reclaim her sanity and get free of the hospital and the insane puzzles within. At the beginning of the game, Pandora awakes in a clean white room, a hospital void of all other life to her knowledge at the time, though beside her lies a strange metal lockbox with 5 locks on it. As she explores the room, a voice comes on over the speaker system, revealing itself as her “saviour”. The voice is “The Narrator” and he instructs Pandora to take the box and leave her room. Upon exiting her hospital room, Pandora is immediately presented with an almost identical room, confused, she may back into her own room, which has now changed slightly, with hints on how to open the other room's door, which is locked by a keypad. The Narrator announces that she must find the code for the door to leave, and provides her with the first OR last digit, without telling her which it is, this is the first hint at the Narrators insanity, as he laughs maniacally at the thought of her confusion. Once the door is open, Pandora is given free reign to explore the hospital floor she is on for a short while until she comes to a window, looking outside and seeing that she is on the top floor of the building, resolving to go to the bottom and leave, the Narrator instructs her that, to truly “escape this place” she must first unlock her box. As Pandora continues exploring the floor, the comes to several more puzzles, all of which the Narrator will comment on in some way, until she finally reaches the stairs to the floor below with one last puzzle. Completing this puzzle will open one of the locks on her box, the moment is falls off, Pandora's sight flashes and the area around her changes, the previously clean looking hospital giving way for a derelict and abandoned place, but the hallucination quickly resumes as Pandora begins to freak out, this is the first time she sees the real world and the moment she does, the box disappears, then reappears once the hallucination continues, hinting that it is not really there, but instead a mentally constructed representation of her locked away psyche. Once she has calmed down, the Narrator knowingly laughs, commenting on her sudden episode and confusion, instructing her to proceed downstairs, which she does. As Pandora explores the different levels of the hospital, completing puzzles to unlock the next floor down, each new floor leading to a lock on her box breaking off and cracks in her hallucination becoming more and more permanent as she regains her sanity, however, if she fails too many puzzles each level, the locks will fail to break for that floor and her hallucinations will grow in strength, much to the joy of the Narrator. If Pandora is successful in unlocking the box upon reaching the exit to the hospital, she will meet the Narrator in person, who challenges her to one last puzzle, one that is only possible to pass with the contents of the box, meaning if she failed to unlock it before the exit, she can never truly be free from her hallucination or the hospital, as the Narrator knocks her out and the game starts over again. With either outcome, it becomes clear that the box contains a secret, the answer to the Narrators final word puzzle, that Pandora had locked away in her mind, repressing it to the best of her abilities. If she is successful in leaving, the Narrator has a smile on his face, almost pleased that she has escaped, and if she fails, he looks tired, exasperated even, hinting that this is not the first time he has had to knock her out and send her back to the room she woke up in, nor does he believe it will be the last. RELATED ARTICLES Characters Art and Setting Thought Experiment Link Puzzles and Mechanics